Tesco has created a new restaurant concept in a move designed to tap into the
popularity of carvery meals among British families and attract shoppers to
its largest supermarkets.

In the latest example of Britain’s biggest retailer diversifying from its core of supermarket retailing, Tesco has developed a new family restaurant called Decks, whose first location opens this week at the Tesco Extra at Coventry Arena.

Decks is named after the “decks” used to present the food for customers to choose and is promoting itself as offering “real” and “wholesome” British food. The decks include a “breakfast deck”, “carving deck”, and “pastry deck”.

Carveries, which allow customers to select their own meat and vegetables, have grown in the UK on the back of success for chains such as Harvester and Toby Carvery.

Tesco has already acquired restaurant chain Giraffe and a stake in coffee chain Harris + Hoole in an attempt to convert its hypermarkets into retail and leisure ventures.

However, unlike Giraffe and Harris + Hoole, Tesco has created Decks from scratch and owns 100pc of the new business.

The restaurant is owned by a new company called Tesco Family Dining Limited. According to Companies House, the three directors of the company are Michael Holmes, who works on new projects for Tesco, Jonathan Lloyd, Tesco’s group company secretary, and Scilla Grimble, the corporate finance and treasury director at Tesco.

It is understood that the restaurant in Coventry is a trial and, if it proves successful, Decks could be rolled out across the country.

Decks in Coventry is offering a beef, pork, gammon or chicken carvery for £5.50. As well as offering a carvery service at lunch and in the evening, the restaurant will sell sandwiches, salads, cakes and has an extensive children’s menu. The restaurant also sells alcohol.

A Tesco spokesperson said "Decks offers customers fresh food at excellent prices, with lots of great healthy options available. It’s a new food concept that we’re trialling in our Coventry Arena store and we look forward to seeing what customers think."